Why votes have value : instrumental voting with overconfidence and overestimation of others' errors


Dittmann, Ingolf ; Kübler, Dorothea ; Maug, Ernst ; Mechtenberg, Lydia



DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geb.2013.12.004
URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/...
Additional URL: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259517045...
Document Type: Article
Year of publication: 2014
The title of a journal, publication series: Games and Economic Behavior
Volume: 84
Issue number: 1
Page range: 17-38
Place of publication: Amsterdam [u.a.]
Publishing house: Elsevier
ISSN: 0899-8256 , 1090-2473
Publication language: English
Institution: Business School > ABWL u. Corporate Finance (Maug 2006-)
Subject: 330 Economics
Abstract: We perform an experiment in which subjects bid for participating in a vote. The setting precludes conflicts of interests or direct benefits from voting. The theoretical value of participating in the vote is therefore zero if subjects have only instrumental reasons to vote and form correct beliefs. Yet, we find that experimental subjects are willing to pay for the vote and that they do so for instrumental reasons. The observed voting premium in the main treatment is high and can only be accounted for if some subjects either overestimate their pivotality or do not pay attention to pivotality at all. A model of instrumental voting, which assumes that individuals are overconfident and that they overestimate the errors of others, is consistent with results from treatments that make the issue of pivotality salient to experimental subjects.




Dieser Eintrag ist Teil der Universitätsbibliographie.

Dieser Datensatz wurde nicht während einer Tätigkeit an der Universität Mannheim veröffentlicht, dies ist eine Externe Publikation.




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